The Future of Downtown

I use a lot of trees in this week's Fitchburg Pride to discuss the future of downtown. It's a pretty interesting time for this key section of the city.

In short, after the city spent up to $50 million in infrastructure investment, over $100 million is either being spent or planned on being spent in private investment downtown.

It creates, in essence, a key point in the future of downtown. If these projects work, and downtown moves forward, this point in time will be looked at as when downtown -- and the city -- began its rebirth. If it fails, the city certainly won't be better, and may in fact be worse in the long-term.

There is certainly optimism on the part of both city officials and those in the private sector who are investing downtown. It's not baseless optimism. However, there's a long road ahead, and it will take more money, more work, and more enthusiasm.

The biggest trick ahead is getting people downtown. The city needs to start giving people a reason to come downtown through events, festivals, whatever. As restaurants and retail develop, those events and festivals will become important feeders to a revitalized downtown.

But, there's a psychological aspect to this and a bad reputation that needs to be overcome. Like the physical transformation of downtown, it won't happen overnight. But the changes are starting, and they're starting now.